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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1999

Vertical Distribution of Aerosol in the Troposphere

The paper addresses the issue of the vertical distribution of aerosol in the troposphere and the relation to causative mechanisms. The focus is on visible wavelength, aerosol extinction cross sections. A background on the state of knowledge will be presented, but the emphasis is on experimental results from several field programs, The GLOBE project (GLobal aerosol Backscatter Experiment) involved a series of flights by the NASA DC-8 throughout the Pacific basin region with comprehensive in situ and multi-spectral lidar aerosol distribution measurements. The data has been extensively analyzed. The results show the existence of a background mode for aerosol loading in the troposphere and a pattern of distribution for transport and boundary layer aerosol for the Pacific region. The ARM (Atmospheric Radiation Measurement) program, operates surface based monitoring sites. For several years at sites in the central great plains and northern coast of Alaska of North America and a site in the tropical western Pacific have been acquiring comprehensive radiation measurements including multispectral aerosol optical thickness and near continuous lidar profiling. Data have been analyzed for typical and special case aerosol events including smoke aerosol from biomass burning for the tropical West Pacific site. Measurements with continuous lidar and multispectral were similarly acquired from a site at Tenerife, Canary Islands during the Aerosol Characterization Experiment and include analysis of the Saharan dust layer. Various measurements will be compared and summarized.

Spinhirne, James↗
NASA NTRS2001

UV Timing and Spectroscopy of the Crab Nebula Pulsar

We have used the Hubble Space Telescope and Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph to obtain Near Ultraviolet (NUV) (1600-3200 Angstroms) and Far Ultraviolet (FUV) (1140-1720 Angstroms) spectra and pulse profiles of the Crab Nebula's pulsar. The pulse period agrees well with the radio predictions. The NUV and FUV pulse profiles are little changed from the visible wavelength profile. Spectra obtained with the Nordic Optical Telescope were combined with the UV spectra for full coverage from 1140-9250Angstoms. Dereddening the spectrum with a standard extinction curve achieves a flat spectrum for E(B-V)=0.52, R=3.1. Lyman alpha absorption indicates a column density of 3.0=/-0.5 x 10(exp 21) cm -2, consistent with the E(B-V) of 0.52. The dereddened spectrum can be fitted by a power law with spectral index alpha=0.11+/-0.04. A broad, blueshifted absorption is seen in CIV (1550Angstroms), reaching a velocity of about 2500 kilometer per second.

Gull, Theodore R.↗
NASA NTRS2003

TOMS Validation Based on Profiles of Aerosol Properties in the Lower Troposphere as Obtained with Light Aircraft Systems

The goal of the University of Miami Aerosol Group (UMAG) in this project was to make measurements of vertical profiles of aerosol properties and aerosol optical depth using a light aircraft. The UMAG developed a light aircraft aerosol package (LAAP) that was used in light aircraft (Cessna 172) during the Puerto Rico Dust Experiment (PRIDE). This field campaign took place on Puerto Rico during July 2000. Design details and results from the use of the LAAP were presented at TOMS Science team meetings on April 1998, April 1999, and May 2000. Results from the LAAP collected during the PRIDE Experiment were presented at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union, December 2000. Some of the results from the LAAP collected during the PRIDE Experiment have been accepted for publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research in a "topical section" made up of papers from the PRIDE Program.

Prospero, Joseph M.↗
NASA NTRS2013

High Resolution Aerosol Data from MODIS Satellite for Urban Air Quality Studies

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) provides daily global coverage, but the 10 km resolution of its aerosol optical depth (AOD) product is not suitable for studying spatial variability of aerosols in urban areas. Recently, a new Multi-Angle Implementation of Atmospheric Correction (MAIAC) algorithm was developed for MODIS which provides AOD at 1 km resolution. Using MAIAC data, the relationship between MAIAC AOD and PM(sub 2.5) as measured by the 27 EPA ground monitoring stations was investigated. These results were also compared to conventional MODIS 10 km AOD retrievals (MOD04) for the same days and locations. The coefficients of determination for MOD04 and for MAIAC are R(exp 2) =0.45 and 0.50 respectively, suggested that AOD is a reasonably good proxy for PM(sub 2.5) ground concentrations. Finally, we studied the relationship between PM(sub 2.5) and AOD at the intra-urban scale (10 km) in Boston. The fine resolution results indicated spatial variability in particle concentration at a sub-10 kilometer scale. A local analysis for the Boston area showed that the AOD-PM(sub 2.5) relationship does not depend on relative humidity and air temperatures below approximately 7 C. The correlation improves for temperatures above 7 - 16 C. We found no dependence on the boundary layer height except when the former was in the range 250-500 m. Finally, we apply a mixed effects model approach to MAIAC aerosol optical depth (AOD) retrievals from MODIS to predict PM(sub 2.5) concentrations within the greater Boston area. With this approach we can control for the inherent day-to-day variability in the AOD-PM(sub 2.5) relationship, which depends on time-varying parameters such as particle optical properties, vertical and diurnal concentration profiles and ground surface reflectance. Our results show that the model-predicted PM(sub 2.5) mass concentrations are highly correlated with the actual observations (out-of-sample R(exp 2) of 0.86). Therefore, adjustment for the daily variability in the AOD-PM(sub 2.5) relationship provides a means for obtaining spatially-resolved PM(sub 2.5) concentrations.

remote sensing↗
NASA NTRS2015

Comparison of Surface and Column Variations of CO2 Over Urban Areas for Future Active Remote CO2 Sensors

High resolution in-situ CO2 measurements were recorded onboard the NASA P-3B during the DISCOVER-AQ (Deriving Information on Surface Conditions from Column and Vertically Resolved Observations Relevant to Air Quality) Field Campaign, to investigate the ability of space-based observations to accurately assess near surface conditions related to air quality. This campaign includes, Washington DC/Baltimore, MD (July 2011), San Joaquin Valley, CA (January - February 2013), Houston, TX (September 2013), and Denver, CO (July-August 2014). Each of these campaigns consisted of missed approaches and approximately two hundred vertical soundings of CO2 within the lower troposphere (surface to about 5 km). In this study, surface (0 - 1 km) and column-averaged (0 - 3.5 km) CO2 mixing ratio values from the vertical soundings in the four geographically different urban areas are used to investigate the temporal and spatial variability of CO2 within the different urban atmospheric emission environments. Tracers such as CO, CH2O, NOx, and NMHCs are used to identify the source of CO2 variations in the urban sites. Additionally, we apply nominal CO2 column weighting functions for potential future active remote CO2 sensors operating in the 1.57-microns and 2.05-microns measurement regions to convert the in situ CO2 vertical mixing ratio profiles to variations in CO2 column optical depths, which is what the active remote sensors actually measure. Using statistics calculated from the optical depths at each urban site measured during the DISCOVER-AQ field campaign and for each nominal weighting function, we investigate the natural variability of CO2 columns in the lower troposphere; relate the CO2 column variability to the urban surface emissions; and show the measurement requirements for the future ASCENDS (Active Sensing of CO2 Emissions over Nights, Days, and Seasons) in the continental U.S. urban areas.

Choi, Yonghoon↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Distribution and Sources of Tropospheric Aerosols Over the Western North Atlantic During ACTIVATE (February-March 2020)

The Aerosol Cloud meTeorology Interactions oVer the western ATlantic Experiment (ACTIVATE) is a five-year (2019-2023) NASA Earth-Venture Suborbital-3 (EVS-3) mission to robustly characterize aerosol-cloud-meteorology interactions during February-June, with a focus on marine boundary layer clouds. This characterization requires understanding of aerosol composition, distribution, transport pathways, and sources. Here we use the GEOS-Chem chemical transport model driven by the MERRA-2 reanalysis to simulate tropospheric carbon monoxide (CO) and aerosols over the western North Atlantic Ocean (WNAO) during the first field deployment of ACTIVATE (February-March 2020). CO is used as a tracer to diagnose transport pathways for continental pollution outflow to the WNAO. The aerosol simulation represents all major aerosols including sulfate-nitrate-ammonium (SNA), mineral dust, sea salt, black and organic carbon aerosols. Model-simulated mixing ratios of SNA and organic carbon are compared with aircraft observations. We show that intensive aerosol mass measurements in the lower troposphere over the North American outflow region during ACTIVATE provide strong constraints on model aerosol wet scavenging. Comparisons of model aerosol extinctions with the airborne High Spectral Resolution Lidar-2 (HSRL-2) measurements indicate that the model generally captures continental outflow of aerosols and enhanced extinctions associated with sea salt. Simulated aerosol optical depths (AODs) and extinction vertical profiles are also compared with satellite retrievals from MODIS/Aqua and CALIOP/CALIPSO, respectively. CALIOP sometimes observes enhanced aerosol extinction at altitudes between ~1.5km and ~2.0km south of 32°N. The model reproduces this enhancement and attributes it to coarse-mode sea salt associated with high relative humidity. The relative contributions of continental and oceanic sources to the aerosol loading, AOD, and their distributions over the study domain will also be discussed.

aerosols↗
NASA NTRS2021

Fitting strategies of accretion column models and application to the broadband spectrum of Cen X-3

Due to the complexity of modeling the radiative transfer inside the accretion columns of neutron star binaries, their X-ray spectra are still commonly described with phenomenological models, e.g., a cut off power law. While the behavior of these models is well understood and they allow for a comparison of different sources and studying source behavior, the extent to which the underlying physics can be derived from the model parameters is very limited. During recent years, several physically motivated spectral models have been developed to overcome these limitations. Their application, however, is generally computationally much more expensive and they require a high number of parameters which are difficult to constrain. In particular, Becker & Wolff(2007) presented an analytical solution to the radiative transfer equation inside the accretion column assuming a velocity profile that is linear in the optical depth. An implementation of this model that is both fast and accurate enough to be fitted to observed spectra is available in XSPEC. The main difficulty of this implementation is that some solutions violate energy conservation and therefore have to be rejected by the user. We propose a novel fitting strategy that ensures energy conservation during theχ2-minimization which simplifies the application of the model considerably. We demonstrate this approach as well as a study of possible parameter degeneracies with a comprehensive Markov-Chain Monte Carlo analysis of the complete parameter space for a combined NuSTAR and Swift/XRT dataset of Cen X-3.The derived accretion-flow structure features a small column radius of∼63 m and a spectrum dominated by bulk-Comptonization of bremsstrahlung seed photons, in agreement with previous studies.

X-rays: binaries↗
NASA NTRS2019

Investigation of CATS Aerosol Products and Application Toward Global Diurnal Variation of Aerosols

We present a comparison of 1064 nm aerosol optical depth (AOD) and aerosol extinction profiles from the Cloud-Aerosol Transport System (CATS) level 2 aerosol product with collocated Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) AOD, Moderate Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Aqua and Terra Dark Target AOD and Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) AOD and extinction data for the period of March 2015–October 2017. Upon quality-assurance checks of CATS data, reasonable agreement is found between aerosol data from CATS and other sensors. Using quality-assured CATS aerosol data, for the first time, variations in AODs and aerosol extinction profiles are evaluated at 00:00, 06:00, 12:00 and 18:00 UTC (and/or 00:00, 06:00, 12:00 and 18:00 local time or LT) on both regional and global scales. This study suggests that marginal variations are found in AOD from a global mean perspective, with the minimum aerosol extinction values found at 18:00 LT near the surface layer for global oceans, for both the June–November and December–May seasons. Over land, below 500 m, the daily minimum and maximum aerosol extinction values are found at 12:00 and 00:00/06:00 LT, respectively. Strong diurnal variations are also found over north Africa, the Middle East and India for the December–May season, and over north Africa, south Africa, the Middle East and India for the June–November season.

Logan Lee↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Variations in radiative heating of humid biomass burning aerosols in the southeast Atlantic from airborne observations and reanalysis

The atmosphere over the southeast Atlantic Ocean (SEA) experiences consistent springtime biomass burning (BB) smoke from widespread agricultural fires on the African continent. This smoke layer is initially lofted high in a continental mixed layer (~5-6km) and is then transported westward into the free troposphere where it overlies and ultimately mixes into a stratocumulus-topped oceanic boundary layer. Coincident with this smoke is an elevated humidity signal which is present from the time a given airmass is over the continental source region. ORACLES (ObseRvations of Aerosols above CLouds and their intEractionS) was a NASA Earth Venture Suborbital mission with the goal of measuring aerosol, cloud, and atmospheric properties over this region over three deployments in September 2016, August 2017, and October 2018. Measurements included in situ profile measurements of aerosol physical and optical properties, trace gas concentrations, and cloud properties, as well as column measurements of aerosol optical depth and trace gas concentrations from an airborne sun photometer. Here we present results from each of the ORACLES deployments over the southeast Atlantic Ocean. Despite the differing locations and season of each deployment, we show that there is good agreement between the airborne ORACLES dataset and large-scale reanalyses, specifically the ECMWF ERA5 reanalyses (and, to a degree, the CAMS product) as compared to other available products. This agreement allows us to examine multi-year seasonal patterns and trends beyond the three months with available aircraft data. In both the data and reanalysis, we find distinct variations between each deployment in terms of vertical smoke distribution and correlation to atmospheric specific humidity, due to changing conditions over the BB season. We trace the origin and the history of these smoky airmasses and finally, we briefly discuss the broader radiative and dynamical implications of these results for conditions of aerosols overlying stratocumulus clouds.

K. Pistone↗
NASA NTRS2021

Fitting Strategies of Accretion Column Models and Application to the Broadband Spectrum of Cen X-3

Due to the complexity of modeling the radiative transfer inside the accretion columns of neutron star binaries, their X-ray spectra are still commonly described with phenomenological models, e.g., a cut off power law. While the behavior of these models is well understood and they allow for a comparison of different sources and studying source behavior, the extent to which the underlying physics can be derived from the model parameters is very limited. During recent years, several physically motivated spectral models have been developed to overcome these limitations. Their application, however, is generally computationally much more expensive and they require a high number of parameters which are difficult to constrain. In particular, Becker & Wolff(2007) presented an analytical solution to the radiative transfer equation inside the accretion column assuming a velocity profile that is linear in the optical depth. An implementation of this model that is both fast and accurate enough to be fitted to observed spectra is available in XSPEC. The main difficulty of this implementation is that some solutions violate energy conservation and therefore have to be rejected by the user. We propose a novel fitting strategy that ensures energy conservation during theχ2-minimization which simplifies the application of the model considerably. We demonstrate this approach as well as a study of possible parameter degeneracies with a comprehensive Markov-Chain Monte Carlo analysis of the complete parameter space for a combined NuSTAR and Swift/XRT data-set of Cen X-3.The derived accretion-flow structure features a small column radius of∼63 m and a spectrum dominated by bulk-Comptonization of bremsstrahlung seed photons, in agreement with previous studies

Philipp Thalhammer↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Variation and evolution of atmospheric structure over the SEA BB season as seen from aircraft and reanalysis

The presence of absorbing aerosols and atmospheric water vapor will impact clouds both radiatively and dynamically. The atmosphere over the southeast Atlantic Ocean (SEA) experiences consistent springtime biomass burning (BB) smoke from widespread agricultural fires on the African continent. This smoke layer is initially lofted high in a continental mixed layer (~5-6km) and is then transported westward into the free troposphere where it overlies and ultimately mixes into the underlying stratocumulus-topped oceanic boundary layer. Coincident with this smoke is an elevated humidity signal which is present from the time a given airmass is over the continental source region. ORACLES (ObseRvations of Aerosols above CLouds and their intEractionS) was a NASA Earth Venture Suborbital mission with the goal of measuring aerosol, cloud, and atmospheric properties over this region over three deployments in September 2016, August 2017, and October 2018. Measurements included in situ profile measurements of aerosol physical and optical properties, trace gas concentrations, and cloud properties, as well as column measurements of aerosol optical depth and trace gas concentrations from an airborne sun photometer, allowing for calculation of radiative heating at different altitudes. Here we present results from the three ORACLES deployments over the southeast Atlantic Ocean. The airborne observations capture both seasonal patterns (August through October) and spatial patterns (north/south and east/west) in the vertical smoke distribution and its correlation to atmospheric specific humidity over the SEA basin. We describe the observed variations and show that the variability in both meteorological and emissions is largely captured in the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasting Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (ECMWF CAMS) reanalysis, which allows for a more systematic examination of the relative frequency of observed conditions and their radiative impact over the region. Finally, we discuss the broader radiative and dynamical implications of these results for conditions of biomass burning aerosols overlying stratocumulus clouds.

Kristina Marie Myers Pistone↗
NASA NTRS1986

Power system applications of fiber optic sensors

This document is a progress report of work done in 1985 on the Communications and Control for Electric Power Systems Project at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. These topics are covered: Electric Field Measurement, Fiber Optic Temperature Sensing, and Optical Power transfer. Work was done on the measurement of ac and dc electric fields. A prototype sensor for measuring alternating fields was made using a very simple electroscope approach. An electronic field mill sensor for dc fields was made using a fiber optic readout, so that the entire probe could be operated isolated from ground. There are several instances in which more precise knowledge of the temperature of electrical power apparatus would be useful. This report describes a number of methods whereby the distributed temperature profile can be obtained using a fiber optic sensor. The ability to energize electronics by means of an optical fiber has the advantage that electrical isolation is maintained at low cost. In order to accomplish this, it is necessary to convert the light energy into electrical form by means of photovoltaic cells. JPL has developed an array of PV cells in gallium arsenide specifically for this purpose. This work is described.

Johnston, A. R.↗
NASA NTRS1982

A spectrophotometric analysis of the hot helium-rich white dwarf HD 149499 B

A comprehensive analysis of the hot helium-rich white dwarf HD 149499 B is presented based on International Ultraviolet Explorer ultraviolet spectra along with available optical spectra and photometry. Line strengths, line profiles, and continuum fluxes are analyzed in terms of a new grid of hot, high-gravity stellar atmospheres of mixed composition. The line strengths furnish the strongest temperature and gravity diagnostics because they are not affected by the contamination of the white dwarf optical spectrum and photometric properties by the K0 V companion, 2.35 arcsec away. Wegner's (1978) classification of HD 149499 B as a DO star is confirmed.

Sion, E. M.↗
NASA NTRS1977

Analysis of H-alpha flare spectra

Spectrographs of the H-alpha line taken at 15 second intervals from the event of 5 Sept. 1973 were interpreted by comparison with synthetic profiles. A sequence of 27 high resolution H alpha profiles was obtained from the second brightest flare kernel. The profiles were generally self reversed with a maximum peak intensity of 1.16 x continuum and a maximum central intensity of .91 x continuum. The line characteristics such as red and violet peak intensities and positions, center shifts and wing intensities were tabulated. Synthetic H-alpha profiles were generated from a finite layer assuming simple parameteric forms for the source function and velocity field. The velocity chosen always decreased with optical depth and had the same sign. For absorption profiles, bisector shifts were calculated for a variety of velocities. The velocity field and source function were derived as a function of optical depth and time.

Kulander, J. L.↗
NASA NTRS1980

Spatial frequency response of an optical heterodyne receiver

The principles of transfer function analysis are applied to a passive optical heterodyne receiver to obtain the modulation transfer function (MTF). MTF calculations are performed based on an optical platform which is imaging vertically varying profiles at worst case shuttle orbit altitudes. An analysis of the derogatory effects of sampling (aliasing) and central obscurations on both resolution and heterodyne efficiency is given. It is found that the cascading property of MTF analysis must be carefully applied since the coherent transfer function of the optical receiver and that due to the local oscillator-detector combination are not separable but are related by the convolution of their products. Application of these results to the specific case of a space-lab type optical heterodyne receiver shows that resolutions of the order of 1.5-2.0 Km are possible for worst-case type orbital scenarios. Further, comparison of obscured-type receivers (e.g., Cassegrains) with unobscured receivers shows that both resolution and efficiency are severely degraded in an obscured-type receiver and consequently should not be used for a passive heterodyne detection scheme.

Fales, C. L.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Comparisons of satellite ozone data in the lower stratosphere for 1978/1979

Lower stratospheric zonal mean O3 distributions are compared in both hemispheres from the Nimbus 7 Solar Backscattered Ultraviolet (SBUV) and Limb Infrared Monitor of the Stratosphere (LIMS) data sets. Generally there is very good agreement with regard to individual profile shape and magnitude and with their longitudinal variability about the zonal mean. When the data are considered in terms of Umkehr layer amounts, there are subtle but significant differences in the respective meridional O3 gradients and their variations with time which are probably related to a changing O3 optical depth and constants to an assumed profile climatology in the retrieval. Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE) satellite O3 results are presented which tend to split the differences between SBUV and LIMS. Additional comparisons with electrochemical concentration cell sonde and Mastsonde O3 profiles are presented in order to sort out the more noticeable differences.

Remsberg, Ellis E.↗
NASA NTRS2020

Radiative Heating Rate Profiles over the Southeast Atlantic Ocean during the 2016 and 2017 Biomass Burning Seasons

Marine boundary layer clouds, including the transition from stratocumulus to cumulus, are poorly represented in numerical weather prediction and general circulation models. Further uncertainties in the cloud structure arise in the presence of biomass burning carbonaceous aerosol, as is the case over the southeast Atlantic Ocean where biomass burning aerosol is transported from the African continent. As the aerosol plume progresses across the southeast Atlantic Ocean, radiative heating within the aerosol layer has the potential to alter the thermodynamic environment and therefore the cloud structure; however, limited work has been done to quantify this along the trajectory of the aerosol plume in the region. The deployment of the First Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Mobile Facility in support of the Layered Atlantic Smoke Interactions with Clouds field campaign provided a unique opportunity to collect observations of cloud and aerosol properties during two consecutive biomass burning seasons during July through October of 2016 and 2017 over Ascension Island (7.96 °S, 14.35 °W). Using observed profiles of temperature, humidity, and clouds from the field campaign, alongside aerosol optical properties from MERRA-2 as input for the Rapid Radiation Transfer Model, profiles of the radiative heating rate due to aerosols and clouds were computed. Radiative heating is also assessed across the southeast Atlantic Ocean using an ensemble of back trajectories from the Hybrid Single Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory Model. Idealized experiments using the Rapid Radiation Transfer Model with and without aerosols and a range of values for the single scattering albedo demonstrate that shortwave heating within the aerosol layer above Ascension Island can locally range between 2 and 8 K per day depending on the aerosol optical properties, though impacts of the aerosol can be felt elsewhere in the atmospheric column. When considered under clear conditions, the aerosol has a cooling effect at the TOA and based on the observed cloud properties at Ascension Island, the cloud albedo is not large enough to overcome this. Shortwave radiative heating due to biomass burning aerosol is not balanced by additional longwave cooling, and the net radiative impact results in a stabilization of the lower troposphere. However, these results are extremely sensitive to the single scattering albedo assumptions in models.

Allison B. Marquardt Collow↗